Spooky Crystal Ball Halloween Candlesticks

I have always been a huge fan of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. It is definitely one of my favorite rides there! I think it has inspired a lot of my Halloween décor too. I just love that spooky Victorian look!

One of my favorite rooms in the Haunted Mansion is the Crystal Ball room and I’ve always wanted to recreate something similar! Well today I am showing off my new Spooky Crystal Ball Halloween Candlesticks!

They are super easy to do too! I love the floating images inside them. So creepy!

All the images I used are from The Graphics Fairy. She has a fabulous resource of creepy old Halloween images!

Update #1: The amazing Karen from The Graphics Fairy and I have worked together to bring you the printable for the crystal ball shapes, along with the images in place! You can head over to The Graphics Fairy to download the Printable! Woohoo!Update #2: Some readers have had trouble using the PDF printable without the images. You can download a .jpeg version of the blank pattern here – if you paste this into Word and then paste your images on top of it, that should work too! Hope that helps!

Start by deciding on your images for the crystal balls. I’ve provided a blank pattern for the shape for you, you’ll need to paste in the images you want to use. As I said earlier, I found mine at The Graphics Fairy – but you can use any image you’d like for a spooky effect.

Cut out all the shapes, inside the black line. You will now have a clear image for your crystal ball.

Since crystal ball’s tend to be a bit cloudy, we’re going to add some smoke to ours to make them creepier, and to hide the transparency a bit.
I have some safety tips for you – seeing as you are going to be playing with glass and fire.

This is not a kids craft. (fire + glass + kiddos = not awesome)

Use a candle, not a lighter or other open flame. Candles smoke more and won’t get quite as hot as a lighter.

Light a candle and hold the opening of the ball just over the top of the flame. You’ll start to see the flame smoke and fill the ball.

This will get hot. Add a little smoke, take a break and let the ball cool off, then add a little more.

Don’t touch the bottom edge of the opening to see if it’s hot. Trust me. It is. (not that I would have experience with that or anything.)

Do not hold me liable for anything that happens to you, your house, or your cats while you are playing with fire. K?

Fill your ball with smoke until it is as dark as you’d like. Here’s a regular ball, and one that I’ve smokified.

Once your crystal ball is completely cool, roll up your transparency image tight enough to slip inside the ball. Do your best not to touch the inside of the opening, it’s full of black stuff. If it does though, it’s not a tragedy. It will just add to the creepiness of the images.

To get the image to stand up straight and look right, add a tiny bead of hot glue to the inside of the front of the ball opening. Press the tab on the transparency that is in the opening onto the glue bead.

Awesomeness.

Now you can add your crystal balls to your candlesticks! If you have children, pets or husbands that are likely to bump, pick up or mess with these, I highly recommend gluing them into the candlesticks.

Here’s a side view – you can see that the transparency is hardly noticeable.

And here’s a front view of our spooky candlestick! Now you can make as many as you’d like!

Has anyone told you lately how brilliant you are? Because it’s totally true. Awesome tutorial, awesome idea. I’m not a Halloween person, but I can completely appreciate this neato project. Very, very cool. *high five*

Ooooohhhhhhhhh….I love this! And now you gave me another idea for my jewelry. I have a bunch of mini glass vials that I want to use up, I’m thinking I can do something similar to this. Thank you, thank you, thank you Bev!

Wow, what an amazing craft! I LOVE these! I adore the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, too, and this project is just amazing! I live in San Diego, too- Laurie from Gallamore West has had such nice things to say about you, I thought I would come check out your blog and say hi :) You have such great ideas!

Bev, I am hopping over from Snap to tell you I absolutely love these… They are so cute and my grandkids would think they were so cool… I am pinning this as I may have to try some of my own…. Thanks for sharing this – love it. Cathy

these are the coolest things i have seen in a very long time as far as halloween decor goes. really! i buy up candlesticks when i see them and make cake plate bases out of them but i have extra and would love to try this. my kids are a little older so i might try with them.
thanks so much for the awesome share. found you via google+ through another blogger and am following.
have a great rest of the week. come by and visit sometime. :)

Wow! Best Halloween Craft of 2014!! Love it. Seems like I’ve seen a lot of the same stuff this year– cute stuff– but still… This, however, is completely unique & genius! New to your site from The Graphics Fairy. Where have you been all my DIY life! =)

Oh my goodness, Bev. These are fantastic! I went straight to Hobby Lobby, got the glass balls and transparencies and came right home and made them. They are wonderful. Thank you so much for the tutorial and for teaming up with Karen at the Graphics Fairy to provide us with the printable.

I have done the soap bottles with transparencies inside and if you’re only making a few, you can also go to the Office Max or wherever and have them photocopy your images on overhead projector transparency. That way you don’t have to buy a whole package of the inkjet transparencies (because they tend to be pretty pricey).

These have to be one of the most amazing halloween decorations I have seen, and since halloween is really big for my family I have seen tons!!! And so easy, these will definitely be on our list to do this year.

This is brilliant. Thank you! I would love to see this done on a bigger scale using a big glass globe! You know, like the ones you can buy for your yard. That would be epic! It would be just like the Madame’s globe from Haunted Mansion!

Those have got to be one of the best Halloween ideas I’ve ever seen, so incredible. You did such a great job. If I’ve seen those I don’t remember. Love the black glossy candle sticks also. Great post. Happy week

HOT TIP – My local Officemax charged me $0.80 (that’s right folks, eighty CENTS) to print this out on a transparency for me. I simply called my local store. They gave me the email address for the print shop and I sent over the attachment. They printed it on transparency and had it ready in minutes! They called me and I picked it up!

I can’t promise every store will do the same but definitely easier than ordering transparency and printing it myself.

“Do not hold me liable for anything that happens to you, your house, or your cats while you are playing with fire. K?”
I love you.
(Oh yes, and these are quite possibly THE COOLEST Halloween craft I have EVER seen.)

I noticed how Great of a Halloween gift this would be . And would like to purchase a few of them .
If you could sent me information where I can purchase them I would be thankful..
thanks , Bill Scott @ rstbenard1002@ Comcast.net

You are wonderful at doing tutorials. This is the best explanation of putting transparency in a Christmas bulb that I have seen yet. I never could get how people did this until now. Thank you so much! And this idea is unbelievably cool. Thanks so much for sharing it.

I LOVE these! I’m doing a variation for work trophies this evening. Also, I found a great way to get lots of smoke in the bulb. Use the bulb like a candle snuffer and put out the candle with it. Doesn’t get hot and creates tons of smoke in the bulbs (which leaves lots of fogging and carbon behind).

Loved this idea, got everything ready but my printer would not print on the transparency paper. I am going to Office Depot tomorrow and have them print it for me. Other then that I am ready to go. Thanks so much for this great idea. I got 2 old and very ornate wooden candle holders and it will look great in my haunted house. Thanks again, Kathleen

These are super cool!!! I’m starting to get ideas together for 2014 Halloween crafts and this goes to the top of the list. I have some colored transparency paper that I think I’ll try with these.Thanks for the great tutorial.

Hi just finished this awesome project. mine turned out great! Wanted to share something I learned. When rolling up and inserting one of the transperancies, I messed up the smoke inside. I poured a little salt in placed my finger over the hole and shook it. It removed most of the smoke and I was able to re-smoke it. (Like it never happened!!) :) thanks for the super great project! Love them

Could you do this for Christmas with Santa, snowman, elf, reindeer, etc. faces? Somehow snowify the globe instead of smokify? I have no idea how; I’m asking you to figure it out. :-))Use gold, silver, red, or green candlesticks. Think it’s awesome & could look elegant as well as spooky.

Hi Bev, I love this project and have bought all the materials to do so, however as I try to smoke it, it will not turn black! It’s almost as if all the candles I have emit a white, instead of black smoke. Any suggestions? How long should I hold it over a candle before noticing a difference? Thanks, I’m excited for my new decor, I love Halloween!

Shoot Natalie – sorry it’s not working out! The only think I can think of is that the candles I used were pretty cheap – I think they were from the dollar store. So maybe that’s why they burned darker? I hope that helps!

Thanks for the ideas. I don’t know if it’s the ornaments I bought, but the candles alone were not working. So I went outside and experimented:). I read that rubber bands let off black smoke… DON’T try it!!! I about set myself and my deck on fire! I found that as the candle was blown by a light breeze it gave off a black smoke, and for when it wasn’t blowing, a dry stick held at the top of the flame works wonders! Thanks again!

Hi Linda, So sorry you’re having trouble! Are you using regular transparencies? You have to use transparencies specifically for printing on. They make them for ink jet printers and laser printers – I picked mine up from Amazon. I hope that helps!

And you have to use the correct side of the transparency. I was a teacher and there was many a times I ruined the transparency by putting it in the wrong way. You could try going over the print out with a permanent marker if you don’t want waste the transparency.

So bummed! I got everything ready and when I tried to roll the image all the ink came off my transparency! I read through the comments and found out my transparencies are for copiers (they are really, really old) not printers!
I’ll have to run out tomorrow and get the right kind.
Thank you so much, this is an awesome project!

Totally cool!!!!! Creepy and classy. Love just the eyeball in the hand picture! I remember from working in offices that you have to match inkjet transparencies with inkjet printers, and laser transparencies with laser printers. And for goodness sakes don’t put an inkjet trans into a laser printer because it will melt. Great idea to pair transparencies with glass balls. I think you could do this for different holidays, if you paired holiday images (thank you Graphics Fairy) with other colors of candlesticks, or glass ones. Thanks for the tutorial and pdf.

i made these last night and they turned out so cool! A simply brilliant idea! The bulbs I found were bigger than the ones you used so I will probably try to figure out how to make the images larger next year…but, they are still way fun. Thank you so much for sharing this!

Made these tonight and they turned out great! Tip, make sure your bulbs will fit in your candlesticks. I wanted to use the larger size bulbs and enlarged the pictures only to discover the opening for my bulbs was too big. Luckily I had the smaller size on hand and was able to redo them.

Yes, I nearly had the same problem, luckily, my husband bored out the candlesticks enough to fit the larger globes he bought me…I just wish I had put 2 and 2 together while doing the images. D’uh, bigger globes, bigger holes, bigger images? Hello! LOL!

I did everything tonight! I painted the candle sticks in purple, used Cracking compound over them to make the vintage looking cracks and then pushed black into them, they looked good but…then I found some webbing spray in silver I had and sprayed it over the stick and now they are awesome!
I smoked my glass globes my hubby picked up for me.
I fought my printer to print the images and not just spit out the blank transparencies.
I got them cut out and….the balls he bought were 4″ not 2.5″ so the transparencies are very small.
Back to Photoshop to make them bigger!
Thanks for the tutorial, I know I will love these when I get them right.

I found this after Halloween, but I need to remember it! I think it would be cute to get images of snowmen, snowflakes, stuff like that, and add to green and red candlesticks for Christmas decoration also!

My transparency also just slid thru my printer and I finally taped a blank sheet to the back and it finally printed on it. I left it for a day to make sure it was dry, I wore latex gloves so I would not get finger prints on it when I rolled it up but all the ink smeared off anyway. Do you have any suggestions. It,s making me crazy! Please help if anyone can. Thannks

Are you using Transparency specifically designed for ink jet printers? There are two sides to those transparency sheets – one is rougher than the other and that is the side that needs to be facing up when printed. Here’s a link to the kind I mean: http://goo.gl/Dp1vnw/. Regular transparency sheets won’t work.
I believe you could also take the file into a copy store and have them run it on their transparency paper – most copy stores carry something like that.

If you have old colored round glass Christmas ornaments and a funnel, you can remove the metal cap from the ornament, pour in a small amount of bleach and slosh around. Viola! clear glass balls! Rinse out and let dry. You are ready to make your Halloween globes.

I’ve wondered how these spooky crystal balls were made. Thank you so much for the fantastic tutorial! I think my mantle needs a few of these this Halloween! Pinned to share and to refer back to when I decide to make them ☺

Bev, these are so cool! I love black candlesticks, I already have a few, I’m wanting the tall spindly one, it is so gorgeous! I am so impressed with your creativity, this is the perfect Halloween decoration! Love them.

Has anyone done these with using just regular white printer paper? Im sure it doesn’t look quite as spooky…. but does it look terrible? I really want to make these but im trying to budget all my crafty ideas! Thanks.

I found your tutorial on Pinterest; this is absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful Halloween project! Your instructions and photos were perfect, and I made the spooky crystal balls and found some candlesticks at Michael’s and Hobby Lobby that were on sale. Everything came out great, and I have received several compliments on these. The only thing I had some trouble with was when I put a small bead of hot glue on the opening of one of the glass balls, the neck broke–I found that my transparencies stayed put on their own, so that problem was solved. Thank you again for a great tutorial!

I gave these a shot but used regular glue because I couldn’t find my hot glue gun. Big mistake, after a week, the glue fumes has made all of the ink slide off the transparencies and into the base of the bulb! WHOOPS! That’s what I get for not following directions. They looked great until then!

Hi!
I love this craft! Am currently in the process of making it! But, quick question!
Because the ink jet printer ink doesn’t really dry on the transparency film, how do you roll the film without the image getting completely smudged and rubbing off while putting it in the ball?

I’m sorry you’re having trouble! Are you using Ink Jet transparency? It’s made specifically so the ink will dry on it. I think that might be it? I didn’t have any trouble with the ink smudging. Hope that helps!

I absolutely love these! I would love for you to come over and link up to the Hauntingly Beautiful Decor Halloween Link Party at http://www.followtheyellowbrickhome.com. You can link up all through October, old or new posts. I really enjoyed this tutorial!

Hi!
LOVE this project. Can you give me a bit more info on the smoke? I understand HOW you get it into the glass, but does it stay in the “globe” or just “stain” it smoky? If the actual smoke stays in the globe, how long does it last….do you know?
Thanks!!
Christy

Hi Christy!
The smoke just stains the glass, kind of like it would on a window or a if there was something too close to a candle. So it’s permanent! You don’t have to worry about it fading unless you accidently wipe it off when you put the transparency in.
Hope that helps!

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Oh Hi!

My name is Bev - thanks for stopping by Flamingo Toes!
I'm a Tennessee transplant that loves to make all kinds of things - sewing, embroidery, jewelry, diy and whatever else sounds fun.
I'm a bit crazy about cats and shoes and addicted to all things vintage! Read More…